This Used To Be About Dungeons полностью

Mizuki cut off a thick slice of the pork belly with an enormous and quite sharp knife, then looked at Alfric. “Last chance to get in on this.”

“All right,” he replied. “Sure.”

Mizuki gave him a satisfied smile, then cut off another slice of pork belly and put the rest back into the chiller. She opened up one of the heaters on the stove, setting the cooling element to one side and letting the warming element heat up, with a heavy cast-iron pan placed on top of it.

“So, where is it?” she asked.

“What?” asked Alfric.

“You said skipping breakfast was custom where you’re from,” replied Mizuki as she watched the pan. “Where is that?” She deemed the pan hot enough and slipped the pork belly onto it, where it sizzled. Once that was completed, she moved over a basket of eggs, then began mixing together a few of the brown liquids into a small bowl.

“The city of Dondrian,” said Alfric. “It’s a hundred hexes away, which is quite far even by leycraft or portal.” He’d spent a fair amount to travel the distance, first taking a leycraft, then going through a conveniently timed portal, which had still left a lot of walking.

“I know where it is,” said Mizuki, rolling her eyes. “That’s a long way though, to come to a place like Pucklechurch.”

“Not so far as Kiromo,” Alfric replied. “I’m sure that’s a story.”

“Oh, certainly,” said Mizuki. “But we’ve known each other for half a day.” She used her huge knife to quickly chop some garlic, pulled some dried herbs from where they were hanging, and put all of that in the bowl. So far as Alfric was concerned, cooking was a variety of magic, strange and arcane, with its own inscrutable laws. “So what brings you our way?” she asked as she went about cooking in her bathrobe, flipping the pork and seeming to revel in the sizzling sound.

“I wanted to put together a party,” said Alfric. “I suppose you’ve already figured out that I’d like for it to be more than a onetime affair.” Again, there was a bit of a lie there, something not said that should have been.

“So long as you understand that’s not what I agreed to,” said Mizuki. She stuck a finger in her sauce and tasted it, then made a face and began adding more things. “But why here? Why not closer to your great and mighty city?”

“What do you know about how the dungeons are made?” asked Alfric.

“Almost nothing,” Mizuki replied. “How many eggs for you? I’m having three.”

“Three is fine,” said Alfric, watching her take the eggs from the basket. “The dungeon portals are old magic, one of the anchoring techniques that keep rogue magic from building up.”

“Well, I knew that; I am a sorc,” said Mizuki. She pronounced it ‘sork’. With a spatula, she carefully moved the pork to the side, then began cracking the eggs right into the pan, one by one. The shells went into a wooden bucket lined with wax paper. “Mushrooms?” she asked. “Bread, cheese?”

“Sure,” he replied as he watched her add butter and button mushrooms to the crowded pan. “So, if left unchecked, magic builds up, and when magic builds up, bad things happen. The dungeon portals drain off that magic to keep it below a baseline within a hex, but part of the exchange is that the dungeons take on the flavoring of whatever magic they’re draining.” She hopefully knew all this. “In an enormous city like Dondrian, there’s heavy magic in use, some of it harvested from other hexes, some from all the magic users, some from the wide variety of magic items, some from the leylines, all swirling around with castoffs and residue. All that gets eaten up by the dungeon portals, which makes them exceptionally dangerous. The portals out here have a lot less magic to work with, which makes them safer. It’s a better place to start out, in relatively unsettled lands.”

“Hrm,” said Mizuki. She had taken two plates down from a cabinet and loaded them up with the pork, eggs, bread, mushrooms, and cheese. “This is a dipping sauce,” she said, pouring half of the sauce she’d made into a second bowl. A fork and knife came clattering down next to his plate. “Dig in.” Before she sat down, she remarried the warming element to the cooling one, carefully matching them to each other so that they would be inert.

Alfric wasted no time in eating, and though he was skeptical of the sauce at first, it turned out to be salty and herbaceous, going well with the fatty pork. It was an unconventional arrangement of foods, by Dondrian standards, and it was the first breakfast that Alfric could remember eating in a very long while, but it was good food, far better than he had expected and more than he had any right to. He found himself consumed with the eating, which went on in silence. When they were finished, at roughly the same time, Mizuki filled up one of the sinks with water and began doing the dishes.

“I’m not sure your explanation makes sense,” said Mizuki.

“Oh?” asked Alfric. “And… can I help with the dishes?”